The present paper is built upon a review study. The purpose of this was to: (i) provide a convenient summary of research on improvisation in compulsory music education, (ii) identify and discuss key areas and thereby provide guidance to researchers planning future studies, and (iii) discuss implications of this knowledge for music educational practice. A comprehensive search for relevant articles, published in peer-reviewed journals 2000-2015, was conducted. Articles written in English, available in full text, were sought in the databases Web of Science (Arts & Humanities Citation Index), RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, Project MUSE and ERIC as they cover most peer-reviewed journals. Through a three-step selection process, 26 articles were identified for inclusion in this review. These articles were examined through a systematic narrative review. The method is seen to be fruitful due to its mix of systematic review principles as transparency and accessibility (Booth, Papaionnou & Sutton, 2012) with qualitative analyses on the basis of author’s experience as employed in narrative reviews (Pawson et. al 2005). It can be concluded that improvisation holds a problematic position – in music education contexts as well as in music education research. Concerning educational practices; a major obstacle to incorporate improvisation in classroom practices is that many teachers feel unprepared and ill equipped to guide their students. Furthermore, teachers declare frame factors such as shortage of time allocated for the subject music in the curricula and shortage of instruments in the classrooms (Whitcomb, 2007; Ferm Thorgersen & Zandén, 2014). Concerning research; often, improvisation seems to be linked to composition. As such it is often regarded as pre-compositional activities. In other words, improvisation is seen as the other side of the coin or even as inseparable from composition. (Burnard, 2000). In addition, previous research has focused the perspectives of children and students (Beegle, 2010; Burnard, 2000) whereas the teachers’ perspectives and perceptions of improvisation aren’t as frequent (Gruenhagen & Whitcomb, 2014; Koutsoupidou, 2005; Larsson & Georgii-Hemming, in progress). At this symposium these findings will be discussed in relation to their implications for practice. We will argue a pathway forward for improving improvisation practice through collaboration between practitioners and researchers.

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